Album reviews: Recent and recommended

Reviews of the latest from The Brian Setzer Orchestra, The Gaslight Anthem and The Henry Clay People.

Peter Chianca

Brian Setzer Orchestra, ‘Don’t Mess With a Big Band (Live)’

American fans of the Brian Setzer Orchestra usually have to catch the band during one of its holiday shows, which have become a staple for the group in recent years (and are a highly recommended way to mark your Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa). But over in Japan, where Setzer is big, his 20-piece orchestra still mounts full-on rocking swing-a-billy tours, featuring material from the group’s six non-holiday discs.

Barring airfare to Tokyo, the band’s latest live release, “Don’t Mess With a Big Band” (Surfdog), is the next best way to get the live BSO experience. The two-disc set recorded in Japan last year does have a fair amount of overlap with 2004’s “The Ultimate Collection” — Setzer standards “Stray Cat Strut,” “Rock This Town” and “Jump, Jive an’ Wail” all turn up here as well — but there are plenty of previously unreleased live numbers on it for fans to celebrate, from a rollicking “’49 Mercury Blues” to a simply stellar full-band version of Santo & Johnny’s “Sleepwalk.”

The trio portion of the disc, spotlighting Setzer with bassist Johnny Hatton and drummer Tony Pia, is particularly smokin’, with a screaming take on “Fishnet Stockings” and a welcome rockabilly revival of the Stray Cats deep cut “Gina.” The standout is a take on “Summertime Blues” with Setzer on acoustic guitar that manages to rock as hard as any electric version.

The one caveat on “Don’t Mess” is that it was recorded before the release of the BSO’s ambitious 2009 disc, “Songs from Lonely Avenue,” and none of those tracks are represented (although “Honey Man,” Setzer’s jaw-dropping version of “Flight of the Bumblebee” from 2007’s “Wolfgang’s Big Night Out,”makes a welcome appearance). That gives them something to shoot for on the next live disc — and who knows, maybe even on an American tour sometime other than December.

But that doesn’t mean the shadow of The Boss doesn’t loom large over the band’s latest release. In lead singer Brian Fallon’s raspy sincerity, his desperate images of heartbroken loners and crushed dreams and the band’s embrace of the power of rock ’n’ roll redemption, Gaslight Anthem is the current frontrunner in the battle of the Springsteen successors.

On “American Slang,” though, the band is much more than that, with the Clash influence clearer than ever as it mingles with shades of reggae, grunge and Ramones-era punk pop. Songs like the title track, “Stay Lucky” and the driving, buoyant “Orphans” continue the blow-out-the-stops guitar salvation mode of their last CD, and “Bring It On” raises the stakes with a moodier build as Fallon offers to take on all comers for a lost love: “Give me the fevers that just won’t break, and give me the children you don’t want to raise,” he demands, in one of the album’s more striking couplets.

And the title of “American Slang” is no accident — the album really does speak the language of America, both in its roots in early rock ’n’ roll and the urban sensibilities of the scrappy survivors it sings about. These are people who’ve suffered the direst emotional blows and still haven’t lost hope that they might someday soar.

And the music on “American Slang” certainly soars with them. Tight as a drum, not a note is wasted — there’s a whole world encapsulated in that 35 minutes. Even as things wind down with the atmospheric closing track, “We Did It When We Were Young,” it’s clear that Fallon and company are still just getting started with their tales of the queens, “The Cool,” and the absent wives and dogs of “American Slang.”

The Henry Clay People, ‘Somewhere on the Golden Coast’

With their punkish sensibilities and lead singer Joey Siara’s somehow appealing style of yell-singing (he out-Finns Craig Finn of The Hold Steady in that department), The Henry Clay People sound like something refreshingly different — but it’s also telling that if you stick their 2008 track “You Can Be Timeless” into your iTunes “Genius” function, it tends to turn up songs by Bruce Springsteen, Marshall Crenshaw, The Kinks and Tom Petty.

On their new album, “Somewhere on the Golden Coast” (TBD) the band has honed even further its ability to hold onto those influences while plowing headlong into the future with a clean, literate, joyously noisy sound that bodes well for the direction of rock ’n’ roll — if we’re lucky.

The band’s punk bona fides are present right off the bat with “Nobody Taught Us To Quit,” a one-minute raver with a message of dedicated slackerism. “Nobody taught us to quit, but we were learning pretty quick,” Siara intones, before segueing into a big-guitar ode to just getting by, “Working Part Time.”

As appealing as their message of enthusiastic hedonism is, it would be nothing without Joey and brother Andy Siara’s gorgeous guitar work — these guys knew what Chuck Berry meant when he sang about playing a guitar like ringing a bell. It’s not hard to hear shades of Mike Campbell, George Harrison and Lou Reed on “Golden Coast,” but the brothers make the sound their own as they complement each other on soaring dueling-axe tracks like the single “Slow Burn.”

The band has a sensitive side too — “We are damaged goods; we are damaged but we’re still good,” they sing on the nostalgic “A Temporary Fix” — but the majority of the no-filler 34 minutes of “Somewhere on the Golden Coast” is a loud, driving dedication to rock ’n’ roll’s propensity for keeping us from working too hard. And they don’t sound anywhere near ready to quit, either.

Peter Chianca writes the Gatehouse Media music blog Blogness on the Edge of Town.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.